Are Halloween Treats Playing a Trick on Great Apes?
by Koray Yilmaz
As that spooky time of year rolls around again, there’s one thing trick-or-treaters should be truly afraid of: Halloween candy sales are now a $2.6 billion industry, and mass consumption during the holiday is not only a risk to our dental health, but also threatens the great apes. Where does the palm oil in your candy come from, and is it sustainably sourced?
Since joining the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP), I’ve learned a lot about palm oil. Like many people, I had a pretty limited idea about the drivers and impacts of unsustainable production. I had an awareness that it was responsible for deforestation, and I’d read about the ongoing haze crisis in Southeast Asia, but honestly knew little as to how I might be personally responsible. It was only after joining GRASP that I became really familiar with the challenges that face the palm oil industry, and importantly the role consumers can play in effecting change.
Palm oil is in virtually everything. From shampoo to pizza dough, it’s an important ingredient in many of our cosmetics, soaps, candles, lotions, laundry detergents, and processed foods. It’s probably even in your toothpaste — although it might not be labelled as such. Often listed as vegetable oil, palm kernel oil, vegetable fat, glyceryl, palmitic acid, stearic acid or any of a long list of deceptive names, you’ll find palm oil and its derivatives in about half of all your supermarket products. It’s the most widely consumed vegetable oil in the world, and with good reason. The oil palm plant itself is at least seven times more productive than any other vegetable oil crop. Its product is high quality, low cost, wildly versatile and fast becoming a food industry favourite. Demand for palm oil continues to soar, and production is expected to double by 2030. But this popularity comes at an ecological cost, and has a carbon footprint to match.
Ninety percent of all palm oil is produced in Malaysia and Indonesia, and oil palm has become the region’s most important cash crop. In 2015, 32.5 million tonnes of palm oil were produced in Indonesia alone, generating $18.6 billion in exports. As tighter regulations force food manufacturers to replace trans fats in their products, high demand across the industry has further driven a surge in palm oil production. This has caused a shift in cultivation from traditional subsistence farming to large-scale plantations, which are devastating diverse ecosystems and critical habitat for critically endangered orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra. As the expansion of oil palm plantations fragments their natural habitat, orangutan populations are being pushed into farmlands causing conflict with humans, often resulting in direct killing and local extinction. It is estimated that over the last 40 years as much as 40% of Bornean forest has been lost, largely due to oil palm expansion. According to the IUCN, another 37% of remaining orangutan habitat will be converted to plantations by 2025.
So what to do? If so many of the products we buy contain palm oil, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s simply unavoidable. But the fact that about half of our everyday goods contain palm oil means that about half do not, and there are numerous resources to help you sort the good from the bad. Moreover, it’s now pretty easy to check whether a product containing palm oil has been produced sustainably — and many claim to be. The RSPO is an industry body that determines whether or not manufacturers and retailers meet certain sustainability criteria, and labels their products with an internationally recognised trademark if they do. Around 17% of all palm oil is now RSPO-certified. Suppliers can also go further and offset their use of palm oil by participating in the GreenPalm trading scheme, allowing their products to be labelled with a corresponding GreenPalm logo.
However, what you can be sure of is that RSPO certification is currently the best guide in the market, and products that are RSPO-certified will have been more responsibly sourced than those that are not. Certification requires that the producers and suppliers used by approved brands have met certain standards to minimize unsustainable impacts on forests. According to RSPO criteria, member companies are forbidden from clearing primary forest or forest identified as having high conservation value. Companies are also subject to various other conditions of responsible development, and must consider the impacts of production on their employees and local communities.
There are now some really convenient ways to check if your favourite lipstick, moisturizer, ice cream or Halloween candy is certified as sustainable and orangutan-friendly. GRASP’s apeAPP contains a sustainable palm oil shopping guide that lets you know whether any product is RSPO-certified. For me, this has been this has been the easiest way to check the sustainability of my own personal products. WWF also offers an interactive scorecard grading popular brands on their commitment to using deforestation-free palm oil, and the Union of Concerned Scientists provides an annual scorecard for some of the world’s biggest brands based on their RSPO commitments. These are some of the best tools consumers currently have to make sustainable choices and protect orangutans. Going forward these choices will also help to conserve other great apes too; as oil palm expands into Africa, deforestation is also threatening vulnerable populations of gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos.
Beyond the great apes, unsustainable palm oil production impacts a large number of other endangered plant and animal species. Large-scale conversion is leading to the destruction of entire habitats and important wildlife corridors, isolating dwindling populations and accelerating biodiversity loss. While this is most pronounced in Borneo and Sumatra, rare species in other parts of Southeast Asia such as the tigers, rhinos and elephants are also at risk. The conversion of tropical forests and peatlands for palm oil is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The loss of these critical carbon sinks has made Indonesia the fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world.
Nevertheless, the palm oil boom continues and it is up to us to take action. There are more than enough reasons to spread awareness, increase vigilance and rethink our buying habits. Halloween is a great time of year to get started and GRASP’s partner, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, provides a definitive guide for sustainably sourced candy. I was personally pleased to find my own favourite brands, like Lindt and Mars, actually make the cut. Mars particularly has made some bold strides towards sustainable sourcing — have a look at their palm oil policy.
Looking ahead, the palm oil industry will continue to grow, and demand won’t be easing off any time soon. But if consumers increasingly opt for responsibly sourced products, a sustainable way forward will present itself — and it starts with candy.
